In a suturing process performed for various surgical operation such as suturing of damaged muscles, blood vessels, nerves, injuries, or surgical cuts, double eyelid surgery, wrinkles plastic surgery, etc. a time-consuming, annoying, and very important work greatly affecting a result of surgery is a process of tying a knot to prevent the release of a suture thread after suturing a suturing site. During a suturing process, a knot is provided to prevent the release of a suture at a start portion and an ending portion of a suture or at a middle portion if necessary.
Since to shorten an operation time and complete an operation as quick as possible is very important, suturing and knotting techniques are essential for stable and efficient operations. However, it is not easy to quickly tie a knot at a distance by using tools to bond a suturing site in a body during an operation using a laparoscope, an endoscope, or an arthroscope, for example.
Conventionally, to tie a knot of a suture thread during suturing, an operator uses two tools to fix or wrap a suture thread while holding the suture thread. Since a large space is needed to manipulate the two tools, an operator needs to be highly experienced to shorten a surgery suture time as short as possible within a limited space such as the abdominal cavity. Thus, a method and a suturing tool, for example, a tool having a great degree of freedom such as a Cambridge endo, a Real hand, a Radius surgical system, etc., or robots to easily, quickly, and firmly tie a suture thread into a knot in a limited space have been developed.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2006-25867 discloses a suture thread for a surgery in which a suture thread is woven to be hollow inside in a lengthwise direction and a suturing tip is coupled to both end portions of the suture thread. Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2003-19683 discloses a surgical robot for ligation and suturing to prevent damage to tissue of a living body. However, a surgical robot such as a Davinci robot system that may facilitate suturing and knotting in an endoscope operation is very expensive and requires a large installation space, which discourages a wide use thereof. Thus, there is a demand to develop a suturing method that may be easily used at a lower cost and a suture thread and needle to enable the method.